sweet to the Ear and others harsh than this free Gift of God For tho some Difference might arise from the grating of the Ear or the easy insinuating in it I see not how that could go the length of the Pleasure of Harmony or Displeasure of Discord nor can there another sufficient Reason be given of the Pleasure arising from certain Figures and Colours and of the Displeasure from others nor of that great variety of Smells and Tastes or of the Pleasure that arises from the Touch beside that Smoothness or Ruggedness of any pungent Impression It is a farther degree of God's Bounty that he gave Man so many Senses by which he might perceive the Impression of all bodily Objects and receive Pleasure and Profit by them and shun Displeasure and Hurt Food being necessary for the Subsistence of Man God hath placed three Senses as Sentinels at different distances warning what Food is convenient or inconvenient for him The Eye sees ordinarily at the farthest distance by which at the view his Appetite is moved the very Brutes at view discern their Food and Physick more exactly than Man because he hath the use of Reason and Experience but many things which cannot be discerned by the Sight being brought near the Nose will be discerned by the Smell and what cannot be so distinguished will be discerned by the Taste The Bounty of God hath yet further gratified Man by variety of Creatures affecting all his Senses not only for his Necessity but for an innumerable variety of Pleasures There is a several kind of Perfection by the Goodness of God given to Man in the wonderful Structure of his Body wherein there is such variety and multitude of Instruments serving for the use of the Soul that there is nothing in it or of it but what is befitted to be an Instrument of the Soul that all the Industry of Physicians till of late made a very small Progress by Inference from the sensible Effects of the Body of Man or by Anatomical Inspection and every day there are new Discoveries made wherein the late Invention of Microscopes helpeth much discovering these minute Vessels which are impossible otherwise to be seen so that the Psalmist cries out with Admiration I am fearfully and wonderfully made No Man hath yet given any probable account of the Formation of the Body of Man or other Animals nor how the Bones do grow in the Womb of her that is with Child Whence there is a great Check to Man's Presumption who is so slow in acknowledging a Being superior to himself and so apt to admire his own Knowledg as if there were nothing he could not reach when yet he knows so very little of his own Body The Comeliness and Beauty of Man's Body is a farther degree of the Bounty of God which tho it be much marred hath in some so much remaining whence it may be considered how great the Beauty of Man was before the Fall and shall be yet much more after the Resurrection of the Elect for they shall be like unto Christ's glorious Body It were but a vain Curiosity to inquire what Alteration in Man's Body would be congruous unto that State The Bounty of God is signally seen in the admirable Union of the Soul and Body which are two diverse Substances which can and do subsist apart and are of the most different Natures and yet are so firmly united that the Soul will never desert the Body were it never so unfirm and crazy while it can exercise its Faculties by it and doth so love it that it feels all things that make Impression upon it it hath Pleasure in all that befits the Body to be its Instrument and Grief or Pain on the perception of all that is hurtful to the Body Yea it apprehends not only that the Grief and Pain but that the Hurt that causeth it is subjected in the Soul it self the Excess and Abuse of which makes Men reflecting upon themselves to apprehend themselves much more as a Body than as a Spirit as if the Soul were subordinate to the Rody and its chief Use were only to enliven and preserve it And therefore in the sharp Pains confounding Terrors or excessive Joys arising from Sense or Imagination the Soul can hardly admit of another Thought by still reflecting upon these and therefore sensible Pleasures do divert and seduce the Soul from Objects and Delights which are more spiritual and sutable to it self more noble and sublime the increase or continuance whereof will never breed loathing or lessening of their Pleasure thence arising as sensible Pleasures do yet this is not to be imputed to nor doth it blemish the Goodness of God in giving sensible Pleasures which cherish and befit the Mind when rightly used The Stoical Severity doth not a little reflect upon the Wisdom and Goodness of God There is no small Debate among the Learned about the Cause of the Union of the Soul and Body which I am not now to prosecute but I cannot so well satisfy my self as by apprehending that this Union is by an Instinct freely given of God to the Soul by which it doth so cleave to the Body and delight in it that it can never leave it while it is able to serve it which is not in the Essence of the Soul tho it be comprehended in the Essence of Man implying more than a Soul and an organized Body by which it can receive Impressions and act accordingly which an Angelical Spirit can do and Experience hath shown that they oft-times have done acting by a fresh and incorrupted Body whence the Soul was departed that it was not discernable from a Man Yea evil Spirits have frequently possessed living Bodies and have overacted the Soul contrary to its Inclinations and Attempts as being a stronger Spirit When I consider the Strength of Self-love that is another inavoidable Instinct or even the fresh and tender Affection of Parents to their Children having nothing in them to breed Aversion which no reasoning can overpower I have no Hesitation that the Soul is capable of this Instinct and that it ceaseth not to have a desire to be reunited to the Body even in its glorious State of Separation else the Resurrection should not be a farther Perfection of Glory Neither do I like the excessive Expressions of the Soul 's being in the Body as in a Prison for tho the Soul be more happy when out of the Body when it is in a sinful State because a great part of Mens Sins arise from their bodily Affections whereof Angelical Spirits are not capable yet that is from Man's Corruption through Sin and doth nothing derogate the Goodness of God I do not believe that these Spirits acting a Body have Pleasure or Pain as Souls have by the Impressions or Actings through that Body If it were not for this inavoidable Instinct would not the Soul prevent the Pains of Torture and Death Oft-times with Ignominy and Cruelty to prevent which
done The Goodness of God is also taken as comprehending all his Moral Perfections by which it is said that he is good and doth Good and that there is none good but one that is God who only is absolutely and infinitely good but the Goodness of God here proposed is distinct from his Justice Mercy and Truth and is more exactly expressed by his Bountifulness or Benignity The Goodness of God is likewise taken as it comprehends his Faithfulness and Mercy which are his most eminent Goodness and Benignity but here it is understood for that Goodness of God to his Rational Creatures which is without Consideration or Connotation of any thing in these Creatures and is so distinguished from Faithfulness which presupposeth Trust or Expectation in the Creature of some Good which is sutable to his excellent Nature to give to those that do depend trust or wait on him for it and yet is not as an Act of Reward in Justice Mercy imports Compassion to a Miserable Creature chiefly in and for Sin and Forgiveness of the Sin and Restitution from the Misery But the Goodness which I now consider is that which is freely bestowed upon the Creature presupposing nothing in it of which there are exceeding many degrees whereof some are anterior to Sin and Misery and some are posterior and yet are not the Acts of Mercy For when Adam had fallen from his Innocency and from the Favour of God it was an Act of Mercy by the Mediator to pardon him and to restore him unto the Favour of God but it was not an Act of Mercy to raise him to an higher degree of Happiness than he had when he fell by which he could never fall again from the Favour of God The first Act of God's Goodness and Bounty was in the creating of Rational Creatures which in their Essence did necessarily imply Understanding by which they could perceive their Creator themselves and other Objects and could judg of the Attributes of these Objects and deduce Consequences from these Judgments and determine their own Choice of what they thought best with a Power to act the same all which is implied in the Essence and Being of a Rational Creature and there can nothing be imagined more free and abstract than God's Goodness in giving this Existence to Rational Creatures which were of two kinds Angels and Men Angels exerting all their Faculties with outward Objects having Communication with them either immediately or by Impressions upon them by a Medium For unless Angels knew the Thoughts of God Angels and Men and the distant Actings of extrinsick Objects without intervention of a Medium which I am far from believing and which is an incommunicable Perfection of God who can be passive in nothing but knows all things actually in his own Decrees I must believe that Angels communicate their Thoughts by some Signs in a Medium and do so perceive the Thoughts and Actings of other Objects tho it was not necessary the manner of the Knowledg of Angels should be revealed yet I may safely remove from them what God appropriates to himself to know Thoughts without any outward Sign yet God communicates to Angels by a Medium or immediately I do sufficiently know by Revelation that some Angels were created with far greater Perfection of Knowledg and Strength than Man one Angel did in one Night kill fourscore and five thousand Men. I doubt nothing that by the Goodness of God there were inbred Principles of Knowledg and Inclination in Angels as well as in Men by which they were innocent and holy while they did follow them but changeable when so great a Multitude of them fell from their Innocency and the Favour of God And tho the elect Angels who persevered have the same changeable Nature they could not be justly called happy if God had not added a farther degree of Goodness confirming them against all danger of falling whence he calls them in his Word Elect Angels which I do not think to be an Act of God's Primitive Justice being so high a Perfection that they could never merit it by being innocent during the time of their Trial but that it was by the free and undeserved Goodness and Bounty of God The Angels by their Nature had no Power of Propagation of their Kind but for any thing appears they were created all together and none of them depended upon another but in so far as some might have greater Knowledg and Strength than others and so Beelzebub is called the Prince of Devils and it is like he hath been the Author of the Fall of the rest as it is certain he was the Seducer of Man The Nature of Man as the Scripture tells us was lower than the Angels and his Soul was incorporate with a Body fitted with Instruments apt for exerting all his Capacities by the receiving the Impression of outward Objects through the Senses all having Communication to the Brain by the Nerves and Spirits by which the Soul is passive and by the same Nerves Spirits and other Instruments are fitted to exercise Motion and act upon outward Objects and upon the Parts of their own Bodies These Specialities are in the specifick Nature of Angels and Men and therefore I reckon each of them but as Gifts of the Bounty of God All other Creatures were created in farther Manifestation of the Perfections of God which is his Glory and for the use of Angels and Men. I think it too great Partiality in those who make all the inferior Creatures to be design'd for Man's use only and not for Angels who have greater Pleasure in the knowledg of them and of the Glory of the Divine Perfections shining in them than Man and tho Man hath more need of them and Benefit by them yet the Angels are not without both in making use of them as Instruments in Communication outwardly by them and inwardly in them The free Bounty of God did imprint upon the Soul of Man the first Principles of his Knowledg of Things that fall not under Sense without which he could never have had firm and clear Knowledg albeit he had the Capacity to discern Implications and Consequences downward from Causes to Effects and upwards from Effects to Causes for if there were not some Principles self-evident the Chain of Consequences might run without end The Bounty of God did also give to Man the Capacity to know Consequences which makes a great addition to his Perfection God did likewise in his Bounty give Man the distinguishing Acts of Joy and Sorrow the one arising from Objects congruous to his Nature and useful for him the other from Objects unsutable and hurtful to him that he might approach the one and fly from the other So that Joy and Grief are not at Man's Discretion but have their peculiar Objects by the Impression whereof on the Sense Imagination or Memory they are excited and not otherwise I know no sufficient Reason why such Sounds should be harmonious and
by God and unalterable by Man but in other things their Pactions are effectual as in other Cases So also in Civil Government the Form of Government the Persons governing the Extensions of their Power more than what is requsite for Order and Determination of Controversies are by the express and tacit Pactions of the Parties except what God did immediately determine in the Government of Israel God did also institute a distinct Government for his own Worship and separated it from the Paternal and Civil Authority both among the Jews in the Levitical Priesthood which was propagated by imitation to most other Nations and among Christians a Church became a distinct Society from a State and hath its proper Ecclesiastick Government tho both Societies may concur in the same Persons The Civil Government is for the outward State of their Society and the Means of their Government is outward by extrinsick Rewards and forcible Punishments The Ecclesiastick Government is about the inward State of those of their Society in so far as Man's Knowledg can reach to promote Holiness and internal and eternal Happiness and about their outward Acts only as they signify their inward Condition and their Rewards and Punishments are only by application of the Divine Ordinances in exciting Joy or Grief Fear or Hope as is conducible for the inward State but without temporal Rewards and forcible Punishments But there is yet a more inward and secret Dominion of God exercised by the Conscience which is his Deputy by which he distributes the most powerful and important Rewards and Punishments not only in this Life but chiefly after Death The most eminent and important Dispensations of God's Dominion is by the Covenants he made with Men which therefore require a particular Consideration especially the general Covenants relating to all Mankind It was a high Honour put upon Men that God was pleased to enter into mutual Ingagements with them by way of Covenant whereby God promised some Favours to them besides those which arose from their Creation which Favours they could not warrantably believe nor expect by his Justice Bounty Mercy or even by his Faithfulness but only by his Promise in these Covenants And on the other part there was not ground to expect them even from the Promises unless there were a voluntary Engagement on Man's part by entring into these Covenants God's Dispensations might have been without any Covenant either by commanding Men to do that which he proposed to them to do whereby the not Performance became a Transgression of his Command and Sin or he might have made Promises conditional without requiring Mens Engagements I see very many Covenants between God and Man in Scripture but the purely Celestial and Eternal Covenants are only two the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace The Covenant of Grace is the chief Concern of Mankind and it runs through the whole Current of Scripture It was published to our first Parents immediately after their Fall and tho the Record of it in Scripture at first be no more but that the Seed of the Woman shall bruise the Head of the Serpent I doubt not but it was more fully manifested to and understood by the first Parents It was more fully manifested to Abraham to whom it was said That in thy Seed shall all the Nations of the Earth be blessed It was continued in the Church in the Revelation and Expectation of the Messiah who was to deliver his People from their Sins and was represented by the Sacrifices instituted by God from the beginning and by the Sacraments and Ceremonies instituted thereafter tho the Jews in their latter times were wholly perverted believing their Messiah to be a Temporal Monarch to raise their Nation to great Glory wherein Christ the Messiah himself did fully confute them from the Old Testament and brought Life and Immortality to light in a clear Discovery of the Covenant of Grace as it remains recorded in the Gospel The Covenant of Works being broken and become void there is but little of it expressed in Scripture in which that Name of the Covenant is no where mentioned and tho it may seem a needless Curiosity to enquire into the Terms of it I conceive it is not unprofitable but very useful to manifest the Glory and Goodness of God in all his Dispensations with Mankind and for the understanding the Covenant of Grace that came in its place which will appear by that excellent Parallel of the Apostle Paul betwixt the first and second Adam It hath been the common Opinion of Christians that there was a Covenant between God and Adam upon solid Grounds It is certainly a great Condescension and Kindness in God to enter into Covenant with Creatures but seeing it is certain that he hath so often admitted sinful Creatures to covenant with him there is no ground to doubt that he enter'd into Covenant with innocent Adam which is yet more clear from the Parallel of the first and second Adam whereby both are acknowledged to represent and undertake for the whole or a great part of the Race of Mankind that through Adam's Failure Sin entered in the World and that Christ had obtained a better Covenant It is therefore inferred that there was a prior Covenant As to the Terms of the first Covenant it is clear that God promised Adam Immortality seeing the Penalty expressed by Moses for the Breach in eating the forbidden Fruit is Death not only Temporal by the Separation of the Soul and Body and the Corruption of the Body but Eternal by the Separation from the Favour of God therefore Life and Immortality is implied which tho it was possible to have been preserved in Adam and his Posterity by the continuance of Adam and his Posterity upon Earth living an Animal Life but this Earth could not have sufficed for all the Posterity of Adam if none had died or been removed yea Immortality could not have been continued in that State wherein the Body was perpetually wearing with its Food and Exercise if there had not been extraordinary Means to have preserved or restored it Therefore I do not conceive that Immortality was competent to innocent Man by his Nature and was taken from him as his Punishment against his Nature but that it was only promised to be given as a part of that Covenant the loss of which was a great Penalty It is true the Soul was naturally immortal and could not cease to exist but by taking away that which was given in its Nature but it will not follow that Man the Complex of Soul and Body was so immortal The Parallel doth also give ground to infer that it was a part of God's Promise in the first Covenant that Adam and his Posterity should be exalted from an Animal Life on Earth to an Angelical Life in Heaven which is evidently a part of the Covenant of Grace and is frequently expressed by Restitution and Redemption importing that it belonged to Mankind before but
A VINDICATION OF THE Divine Perfections Illustrating the Glory of God In Them By Reason and Revelation Methodically Digested into several MEDITATIONS By a Person of Honour LONDON Printed by J. D. for Brabazon Aylmer at the Three Pigeons in Cornhill M DC XC V. The PREFACE THE essential and absolute Perfections of which the Deity is possest for ever are the Object of our supream Reverence and Adoration Love and Joy Affiance and Trust. The comprehensive Knowledg of them infinitely exceeds our finite Faculties but their Discovery is of God which is of gradual Accomplishment according to our Conceptions and Capacities and in order to our transforming Contemplation of him in his imitable Excellencies The Light of Reason like the early Morning when the Shadows of the Night are mix'd with the Light of the Day affords some glimmering Notices and scattered Glances of the Divine Essence and Attributes The Light of Faith like the ascending Light of the Sun that dispels the Mists in the Air gives a more clear and extensive Discovery The Light of Glory like the Sun in its full Lustre reveals them in the most resplendent manner In the whole Frame of Nature in the Variety and Union of its Parts in their Order and Efficacy the Wisdom Power and Goodness of the Divine Maker appear or rather shine his Attributes and Excellencies are visibly signed and engraven on his Works But since the Revolt and Ruine of Man the Understanding is strangely darkned and disordered in its Operations Of this there is sad Evidence in the numberless Errors that swarm'd in the World concerning God The Heathen Notions of him were in such a degree of Deformity as infinitely blasphem'd his Nature It will be sufficient to mention one fundamental Error To the enlightned Mind the Divine Perfections carry their Evidence in a Circle one Attribute illustrates and strongly infers another yet they could not conceive the absolute Perfection of God's Nature but fancied every Attribute to be a singular Deity These portentous Mistakes did not proceed from the Defect of Visibility in the Object but of Sight in the Eye of Reason so weakned and vitiated in our lapsed State It pleased therefore the Father of Lights in his admirable Mercy to afford a new Revelation of himself to the Minds of Men. The same Heavenly Inspiration from whence the reasonable Soul proceeds was requisite to renew the true Knowledg of God in it The sacred Scripture is the Medium of this Revelation wherein are such Characters of the Deity that none but a perverse Mind can suspect it not to be the Word of God In that Glass his most Divine Perfections are revealed Wisdom Goodness Holiness Justice that are principally exercised in the Moral Government of the World The external Revelation of God's Nature and compassionate Counsels in the Gospel when productive of an inward Revelation to the Mind so powerful as to regulate the Will and Affections is of saving Efficacy The wise Men with the Direction of a miraculous Star had internal Illumination that discovered the Incarnate Son of God and Saviour of the World to them The Light of Faith is as much below the Light of Glory as 't is above the Light of Nature Now the Manifestation of God is temper'd to our frail Faculties if his transcendent Excellencies were display'd to us we should be swallowed up in Extasy and Astonishment But in the future State where the Natural Body shall be spiritualized we shall know as we are known In Heaven God shines by direct Beams the clear and uninterrupted Vision of his Glory is the Cause and Consummation of the Felicity of Angels and Saints for ever We begin our Heaven here by the attentive and transforming Contemplation of the Deity The Noble Author of the following Discourses has obliged the wise and inquiring Christians by communicating his Treasures The Clearness and Vigor of his Spirit are illustriously visible in managing a Subject so deep and difficult And as in the blessed God there is a Union of all glorious and amiable Excellencies as are perfective of our Minds and attractive of our Wills so in our Author's unfolding them there is joined with the strength of Argument that Beauty of Perswasion as may enlighten and engage all under standing Readers to be happy in the entire Choice of God for their everlasting Portion We have here an imitable and instructive Example to Great Men the Dignity of whose Stations in the World too commonly seems to plead an Exemption from a more sedulous Intention and Application of Mind to the Affairs of Religion that have final Reference to another World This Performance of the Noble Author shows it to be a thing not impracticable as it is most Praise-worthy amidst the greatest secular Employments to find Vacancy and a Disposition of Spirit to look with a very inquisitive Eye into the deep Things of God Which if it were the Author's Pleasure to be known would let it be seen the Statesman and the Divine are not Inconsistencies to a great and comprebensive Mind so as to consider them with Distinction and without confounding them or making the two Spheres intersect one another so as that in so large a Theological Work here is no mixture of Political Matters except wherein the Nature of the things themselves they are contiguous And were it not so or if this Work concern'd Policies and Governments by Men it were without our Compass to recommend it to the World Which having had some Taste of it we make so much haste to do as not to allow our selves the Pleasure of engrossing it or of perusing it alone till we have imparted it and made it possible to others to partake with us therein W. BATES J. HOWE THE CONTENTS Meditation I. INtroductory 1 II. Upon God's being a Spirit 19 III. Upon the Self-existence and Eternity of God 28 IV. Upon God's Omniscience 36 V. Upon the Will and Pleasure of God 67 VI. Upon the Power of God 78 VII Upon the Oneness of God 89 VIII Upon God's Freedom 140 IX Upon the Blessedness of God implying his Self-sufficiency Self-comprehension his infinite Love to and Delight in Himself 118 X. Upon God's Holiness or Godlikeness 126 Page XI Upon the Unchangeableness of God 141 XII Upon the Goodness of God 150 XIII Upon the Truth of God 168 XIV Upon the Justice of God 179 XV. Upon the Mercy of God 200 XVI Upon the Faithfulness of God 213 XVII Upon the Wisdom of God 224 XVIII Upon the Dominion of God and his Dispensations thereof towards his Rational Creatures especially by the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace 257 MEDITATION I. Introductory The greatest Duty of Man towards God is to delight in God as in the most excellent and most amiable Object It is also the highest Accomplishment of Man's Happiness for by delighting in God he doth enjoy him Delight can only arise from the Knowledg of the lovely Object in the Perfections thereof And according to
laboured but one Hour as to those that laboured a whole Day saying Why are you evil because I am good Is it not free for me to do with my own what I please But the Folly of this Pretence I see further cleared that it was not possible to evade it for though he should have made a Million of Worlds and far more perfect than this yet still he could have made more and more perfect otherwise his Omnipotence had been exhausted and his Power as well as his Freedom behov'd to cease Besides that Revelation shows the Design of glorifying Man by the Mediator Christ. It had been exceedingly unsutable to his Merit that a Part of glorified Men should have owed nothing to him and so he ought either to have suffered in every Habitation of Mankind or they ought all to be in one Habitation and of one Nature and Blood of both which he was Partaker My Design is to clear up to my self the Divine Perfections and thence to exalt the Loveliness of God and to vindicate the same against these and other Errors and Mistakes by methodical Meditations thereupon according to the natural Order of the Divine Perfections which Order doth very much contribute to distinct Conceptions of them all The Divine Perfections are either natural and absolutely necessary or voluntary free and moral And though they be without all Composition in the fullest Simplicity yet they must necessarily be conceived by Creatures as some being prior and others being posterior in order of Nature the Divine Dispensations must be posterior even in time to his Purposes or Decrees his Decrees being free must presuppose his Freedom and his Will and these must presuppose his Understanding and Wisdom and all must be conceived as into or from a Subject to which they are relative His moral Perfections must relate to his natural Perfections as being prior in order of Nature that he intends and acts all things sutable to worthy of and becoming such natural Perfections and therefore the best Method in meditating upon them is by following their natural Order MEDITATION II. Upon God's being a Spirit 1. GOD's being a Spirit is the only Attribute of God that presupposeth nothing anterior Being a Spirit is the Subject of all the Divine Attributes for the being God doth essentially comprehend all God's Self-existence importeth something that is Self-existent which is his being a Spirit so doth his Independance his Knowledg his Will his Freedom All run up to bring us to consider him as a Spirit We must not consider the Divine Attributes as different Parts of the Divine Nature which were inconsistent with a Spirit which is without all Parts Extension or Composition so that God is altogether Immaterial hath none of the Properties of a Body in whom there is neither Matter nor Form Parts essential or integral which is an incommunicable Property of God It is also incommunicable that there are no Accidents in him he acteth all Things immediately without a superadded Power or Capacity of which no Creature is capable For it 's inconceivable that one Creature should act one way and another another way without superadded Powers freely given of God for if any Creature acted in that it is a Creature or as a Creature then all Creatures behoved so to act or if it act as a Substance a Spirit or a Body then all Spirits all Bodies behoved so to act 2. God's acting without a superadded Power without any accession to his Substance is his incommunicable Perfection implied in all his Divine Perfections neither doth it follow that other Spirits must so act as Angels or the Souls of Men for they are only analogous Spirits by resemblance there is no synonymous degree of Nature common to Finite and Infinite God and Creatures othertherwise that Inference were inevitable Substance and Ens are but abstracted metaphysical Notions and there are no Individuals immediate to these as there are in Man and to the several Species of Brutes Some to avoid this difficulty have supposed the Angels not to be pure Spirits but to have aerial or aetherial Bodies so thin as to be insensible and that pass through the Pores of all solid Bodies which the Air cannot do but then the separate Souls of Men should be pure Spirits yet some have thought that even then they have aerial or aetherial Bodies but certainly the Angels and Souls of Men by the Power of God were separable from such Bodies and yet active and so the immediate actings of God as a Spirit should be competent to these Spirits I know no other way to extricate that Difficulty but that there is nothing purely Spirit but God and therefore Angels and Souls tho they have not Extension and Bulk as Bodies yet they have not that Property that they can co-exist with any other created Substance in the same space so that the Essence of a Body consisteth not in Impenetrability but in Extension and God alone can co-exist with all created Substances This is much confirmed by the chief and most express place in Seripture where God is said to be a Spirit John 4. 24. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which tho it be rendered God is a Spirit the Words are a Spirit the God And in Scripture Indefinits are equivalent to Universals This way of expression is not to be supposed an accidental Conversion without a very convincing Reason neither is there in it a Copulative but the words are placed as two Synonyma a Spirit and God being one thing The Article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth not import that God is the Subject and a Spirit is the Attribute but a true Spirit is the God excluding all false Gods and others that are by participation called Gods as in the demonstration of the true God by Elijah the People being fully convinced cry out Jehovah is the God that is the only God The Name of God is comprehensive of all his Perfections from which that conception or Idea doth arise so that it would not be eminently significant to say that Being that hath all possible Perfection is a Spirit but rather a true Spirit must have in it all Perfections and there is nothing in the Attributes of God presupposed to being a Spirit of which a Spirit should be an Attribute but a Spirit is that which in our Conception doth only represent a Substance and therefore the natural Order of this highest Expression is as in the Original a Spirit the God The same is confirmed 2 Cor. 3. 17. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Lord is the Spirit importing not only that God is a Spirit but that he is the Spirit that is the only Spirit In this I am further confirmed considering that all Philosophers are at a loss to give any rational Account how a Spirit moveth Matter or how Matter acteth upon a Spirit seeing all agree that the efficacious Fiat is proper to God alone and therefore a Spirit cannot move Matter by willing it to
having promised he is not indifferent as to Performance The Performance of God's Promise is attributed oft-times to his Faithfulness or to his Bounty but to speak accurately it is only to be referred to his Justice For after the manner of Men it is said That God is faithful who hath promised where both Faithfulness and a Promise are joined So God may promise that which his Justice would require without a Promise as he does also to confirm Men not only promise but sometimes swear to perform Commutative Justice is not competent to God For who hath given to him that he should repay Yet such is his gracious Condescension to Men that he hath frequently entered with them in Covenant the most excellent of which is the Covenant of Grace which yet cannot be called commutative as if God's part and Man's part were the mutual Causes every converted Man enters in the Covenant of Grace by his Consent to God's offer of Grace But the freest Grant requires Acceptance when by way of Offer in which it differs from an absolute Gift which is effectual if it be not rejected but Man's Acceptance or Consent is also by the Gift and Grace of God The Distributive Justice of God consists in the distribution of Rewards and Punishments and hence it is divided into Premiative and Punitive Justice both are exactly proportioned to the occasion to which God's Holiness directs it self which is called the deserving or meritorious Cause no other way than as an occasion comes in among Causes when a merciful Man sees a miserable lie hath Compassion and helps him Could this Miser boast that his Misery is the cause of the Mercy No it was indeed the occasion of it but the Man's Mercifulness was the Cause So it is in God's Justice tho Mankind were like the Beasts of the Field and the Fish of the Sea devouring each other it could not reach God but it is the Congruity of his glorious Nature which is the cause why he rewards the Good and punisheth the Evil. All Christians agree that God's Punitive Justice is adjusted to desert or merit but some have been so impudent as to claim eternal Happiness by their own Merit and that God could not be just if he did not give it not by his Promise nor for Christ's Merit alone as only taking away Punishment but they think the Reward is from their own Merit Others have so much abhorred this that they have run to the other Extream holding that all Rewards are absolutely free without any thing of Justice so that God should only have Punitive and not Premiative Justice as Man's Condition now standeth after the Fall And that if Man had not fallen he had by his Merit been translated into the Heavenly Estate not by God's Promise or by his Bounty but by his Premiative Justice but that now Man having fallen nothing belongs to him by the Premiative Justice of God There are many and great Authorities of Learned Men on all hands in this matter but when I look up to God and make use of the Light of Scripture and Reason he hath given me I cannot assent to either of these Extreams when I consider that God hath with so strong an Asseveration declared Verily there is a Reward for the Righteous to whom he faith also That it is just with God to give Tribulation to them that trouble you and to give to you that are troubled Peace with us and that God is not unrighteous to forget their Labour of Love yet these Righteous were not Innocents I am not moved with that Argument That all sinful Men even when regenerated do deserve eternal Damnation tho for Christ's sake it be forgiven and therefore if any thing they could do could deserve Good from God they forfeit that by their deserving Death for one may as well withhold from an Enemy that which was due as take from him that which was his own But when I consider that Christ hath by his Merit through the Covenant of Grace procured a full Pardon of all the Sins of the Regenerate through Repentance and Faith both the Similitude and the Reason of it fail for he hath taken away the Enmity and hath made Reconciliation whereby the Justified become not only Servants but Sons Heirs and Coheirs with Christ of Glory I am far from fancying that any meer Creature doth or could deserve the Glory of Heaven no not Adam tho he had continued innocent nor the most glorious Seraphim The Angels were created in the state of Celestial Glory which was by God's free Bounty they could pretend no Merit for deserving that Glory that they had at the first instant of their Being nor do I believe that their Consirmation and Assurance is an Act granted by God of rewarding Justice but of free Bounty it being so high an Advancement from a fallible to an infallible State which the best of their Service could not deserve It was congruous to the Freedom of God and the Dependance of his Creatures and his Dominion and Government of them that they should all be capable of Rewards and Punishments and be ruled by the righteous Laws of God and that therefore they should be in a labile Estate and even in that Estate God did reward the Improvement of their Natural Capacities by adding farther degrees to them of their Love to him and Joy in him which crowns their Happiness but his Promise or the Manifestation of his Purpose that if during their Trial they were faithful in that fallible Estate he would never suffer them to fall I do not doubt that they acknowledg it as his free Bounty and even in that confirmed Estate their Perfections can never be so great but they can be increased and therefore there is still place for God's Premiative Justice If then the Angels have the Celestial Glory without Merit by meer Bounty and yet God by his Premiative Justice is still adding to their Perfections which is clearly revealed by the Fall of the evil Angels and that these that stood are declared to be the elect Angels whence all I have said will follow could Man tho innocent pretend by Merit and Justice to arrogate more to himself than the Angels He was created innocent able to have so continued but in all Perfections far inferiour to the Angels In his fallible Estate he was capable of God's rewarding Justice as were the Angels in the like Estate before Confirmation But could he have deserved Confirmation and Exaltation from an Animal to an Angelical from an Earthly to an Heavenly State At Man's Creation God had promised him Immortality not by his Nature for his Body was fragile and might by second Causes have been rendered unserviceable to his Soul but only by God's Providence he behoved to eat drink sleep rost We have no ground to believe that his Children so soon as they were born needed not his Care and Trouble tho they had been as perfect as Christ in the State of his